Illustrator : How to create a curved bleed

I want to prepare an artwork for a bookmark. The bookmark has a curved bleed, which I need to extend my background until the curved ends. I do not know how to extend my artwork to the curves. The image I have is rectangle (from Adobe Photoshop) and I have imported the file into the Adobe Illustrator. The blank template with the curved bleed is given to me by my commercial printer.

Anyone can help me?


Printing with http://www.cardadvert.8m.com

In Illustrator, create rectangle shape which has curved edges (no fill just edges)

Make sure the rectangle is arranged to the front of the image you want to create the bleed on.

Then highlight both items (the image and the rectangle shape) and right click and select 'Make clipping mask'

This will get rid of the excess image and crop it to the same shape as the rectangle.

I'm a little confused as to why you need to import a 'rectangle' from Adobe photoshop?

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking either, but bear in mind it doesn't matter how far your image bleed extends. As long as it covers the minimum bleed designated by your printers template it will be okay. Your bleed doesn't have to be curved either - the printer just needs enough image to make sure that when it is trimmed there won't be any gaps due to slight innacuracies.

Hi, I just gone through all the steps you mentioned, and I finally got it right! Yahoooo!

The reason why I am importing a rectangle-shaped image from Adobe Photoshop is because I have edited the image in Photoshop program. The final part is to import it into Adobe Illustrator so that I could add some text into it. The final product is actually a potrait Bookmark with a round shape on the top. My printer told me that I need to 'exactly' extend my artwork until the bleed - which is also a round shaped on the top. Long story huh?....

Even though I am in printing business, but my design knowledge is limited.

Thanks again ! Really appreciate it...